Deucalion
The Deucalion are a bloodline of the Ventrue Clan most commonly found among the Carthians. The Deucalion see themselves as the perfect realization of the vampire and pity the poor sub-vampires that roam the nights along them. Overview The Deucaliones are a young bloodline, formed sometime within the last 50 years. The founder, a Ventrue named Victor Spanos, was Embraced during a period of high immigration in New York. Greek by ancestry but American by birth, he watched as Italians, Irish, Greeks and others tried to mix into the "melting pot" of the city. He decided, though, that the "melting pot" was more a bowl of marbles than anything else. The people didn't melt, didn't change and didn't allow themselves to be changed. They clung to their ways, their foibles and their weaknesses. Victor, in the years leading up to his Embrace, was a constant force against immigrants' rights unless they learned American English (without accent), could work in America and didn't ask for silly things like Catholic or Greek Orthodox holidays. Victor came to the notice of an Invictus Elder, who wanted to use his business connections. To his anger, Victor severed all ties to his old life once he was embraced, throwing himself fully into the Requiem and leaving New York. He joined the Ordo Dracul and studied the history of vampirism and noticed how the Masquerade had been constantly endangered by the lesser Clans. The Ventrue, he decided, were without intrinsic flaws. The Nosferatu were obvious monsters — fine if one wished to terrorize fairy-tale children, but not conducive to a modern Requiem. The Gangrel could not think rationally, at least not predictably, and this kind of chaotic thought process made them dangerous to rely upon. The Daeva were slaves to their base impulses, and Victor saw that this led to the Daeva either degenerating into madness or becoming mentally exhausted in short order. The Mekhet, of course, had even less tolerance for light than most Kindred and were regarded as the least among the Damned. After this discovery, Victor authored a lengthy treatise that spoke of the inferiority of the lesser Clans and the superiority of the Ventrue, using the mythological motif of Deucalion, who survived the Great Flood the gods had used to purge the unclean from the earth, to illustrate his point. The Ordo expelled him, deeming him as a failure as a scientist and sending him to the Carthians. Victor read the comments to his treatise and came to the conclusion that he had been wrong to show it to them. Not because he was mistaken, of course, but simply because he couldn’t expect them to accept it. Would old and powerful Kindred acknowledge the truths that he had realized? Of course not, for Victor was not far from his Embrace and such far more close to his mortal roots. Among the Carthians, Victor preached his doctrine of superiority, earning him few friends among the other Clans, but several interested listeners from the Ventrue. It was, however, after being confronted with a Ventrue of an obscure bloodline, who beared herself like an animal, that he came to several conclusions: It was possible for Ventrue to lose their purity, but he was convinced that a vampire could not alter his blood by accident. Therefore, the choice to join a bloodline was still a choice, and any fallibility among the Lords came from a particular vampire’s foibles, not from the Blood. His mission, then, was to determine whether it was possible for other clans to become pure, losing their weaknesses and joining the Ventrue as unflawed Kindred. At the end of the 20th century, he had formed his own bloodline. The mission of the modern Deucalion is threefolded: First, defend and proselytize the superiority of Clan ventrue and of Deucalion doctrine. Second, expand the knowledge of deviant bloodlines. Third, help the lesser Clans cope with their failings. Weakness Deucaliones suffer the Ventrue clan weakness, not that they'd admit it (-2 penalty to Humanity rolls to avoid acquiring derangements after failing a degeneration roll). In addition, Skinheads are arrogant in the extreme. To their mind, they don't make mistakes, but are simply subject to occasional runs of bad luck or conspiracy; they can do no wrong. In game terms, while they can still gain Willpower for accomplishing their goals, they lose Willpower for failing. The Storyteller needs to adjudicate what constitutes failure. An Intelligence + Occult roll to know an obscure fact that doesn't produce any successes might not be a failure to the Deucalion - he simply doesn't know, and that's no fault of his. Attempting to jump between two buildings and failing, though, should certainly cost a Willpower point (in addition, probably, to some Health points). References * , p.162-167 Category:Vampire: The Requiem Bloodlines Category:Ventrue (VTR)